Home Ownership Scheme

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Home Ownership Scheme (居者有其屋計劃, HOS for short) is a housing programme carried out by Hong Kong Housing Authority in Hong Kong. It was instituted in the 1970s as part of the public housing system for those who were not entitled to, or unwilling to live in, public housing.

Now the poorer members of the public can buy as well as rent residences from the Government. Under this scheme, the Government:

sells apartment flats at a price lower than the market;
provides subsidies on the land value; and
restricts re-selling in the second-hand market.

For certain projects, the Housing Association has entered into arrangements with local private developers to provide property for sale under the Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS) (私人機構參建居屋計劃 or simply 私人參建計劃).

1 History
2 Short piling
3 Market distortion
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

The first such plan was launched in 1978 and the first batch of flats became available in 1980, the first estates being Yuet Lai Court (悅麗苑) in Kwai Chung, Shun Chi Court(順緻苑) in Kwun Tong, Shan Tsui Court (山翠苑) in Chai Wan, Chun Man Court (俊民苑) in Kowloon City, Sui Wo Court (穗禾苑) in Shatin and Yue Fai Court (漁暉苑) in Aberdeen.

Average unit selling prices were HK$120,000. However, citing the fact that flats from the Mei Sun Lau development were selling at prices above the prevailing market prices, press favourable to the Chinese authorities criticised the Government of profiteering from this scheme^[1].

[edit] Short piling

In 2000, the scheme was caught up in a short-piling scandal which resulted in the resignation of Housing Authority Chief Rosanna Wong, and a censure for Housing Diretor Tony Miller^[2]. The construction of 2 blocks of Yu Chui Court in Shatin was delayed as it had to be demolished and rebuilt at an estimated cost of HK$250 million. The Wai Kee Group was implicated, and some of its companies were delisted from Government projects following the pubilcation of the Strickland Report.

[edit] Market distortion

In 2002, there were complaints that weakness in property prices were largely affected by excessive unfair competition in the housing marketplace from schemes such as the HOS. Government halted the PSPS, developments which were in progress at the time were either transformed into public housing, or sold off to private developers^[3]. In the latter case, the Hung Hom peninsula project was sold for a below-market land premium of HK$864 million to New World Development, who subsequently sold off half share to Sun Hung Kai. In 2004, the consortium announced the demolition of these buildings to make way for luxury apartments, to be faced with huge popular outcry about the needless destruction of "perfectly good buildings" to satisfy corporate greed. In an unprecedented about-turn, the developers withdrew the plan on December 10, 2004^[4].